"dang" is a detail--the point is, if someone is being cut a paycheck by a company, the public is well within reason to believe that person has a job obligation to favorably represent the interests of that company.
Explicitly saying you don't do X while doing X is lying, whether or not you are getting a paycheck for it.
(And to be clear, I doubt dang is lying; there’s no need to resort to centralized moderation to explain the observed behavior.)
Would anyone stop using HN if you knew they buried negative stories about YC? You're all still here so likely no.
Yes, but the way we do it is different from the common assumption because we want to optimize HN's value for YC globally rather than overreacting to any particular story.
HN's value to YC consists of the community, and the community only exists because of goodwill and trust. To jeopardize that for the sake of suppressing a particular story (even if the article is false and/or sensational and/or shallow, silly or whatever) would be a super dumb tradeoff, so (as my son once said when he was little) "that what we not do".
I understand the skepticism, and of course you're free to disbelieve any part of what I say. All I can do is explain to people what we do and how we think about it, answer questions when asked, and hope that this is good enough to keep the bulk of the community happy.
"Company investigated Company and found that Company did nothing wrong"